New tool tracks trail of gambling harm

A Southern Cross University academic has collaborated with the Australian National University to develop a modelling tool that can predict the location of gambling-related harm.

Dr Martin Young, a senior researcher with the University’s Centre for Gambling Education and Research, developed the model with Dr Bruce Doran from the Australian National University.

Dr Young is presenting the initial results, entitled ‘Predicting the spatial distribution of gambling harm in remote contexts’, at an academic research colloquium to be held at the Lismore campus on Tuesday, December 6.

“The model Dr Doran and I have developed allows us to map the likely incidence of harm for any given location,” said Dr Young.

“Early results show we are predicting the catchments, or trade areas, of poker machine venues extremely accurately, far more accurately than we were anticipating.

"And we’ve accurately predicted the harm flowing from these locations.”

The model uses poker machine data, location of venues and socioeconomic status at the local level to predict gambling harm.

“Merging trade area data with low socio economic status produces a gambling vulnerability surface,” said Dr Young.

Dr Young said the model has been developed to help governments make informed decisions.

“We would like this modelling to be used as a social impact assessment tool as well as a regulatory tool to enable better decisions to be made about where poker machines get licensed, particularly in relation to vulnerable communities.

“In short, where you wouldn’t put poker machines or where you could distribute them in a way that minimises harm.”

Dr Young said consumers were currently bearing both the cost and the risk associated with gambling industry.

“Electronic gaming machines (EGM) are so profitable because they produce a gambling product that is almost labour-free. From a spatial perspective, they can be distributed extremely easily and thus possess the ability to exploit untapped markets through the existing pub and club infrastructure.

“From a fiscal point of view, EGMs are a regulator’s dream in that the resource flows they produce can be linked to real time centralised databases for taxation, accurate to the cent per day.”

Dr Young’s related work on the topic, ‘Towards a critical geography of gambling spaces: The Australian experience’, is published in the latest edition of Human Geography.

The Social Research Methods and Praxis: Contemporary Visions from Anthrogeography colloquium, being hosted by Southern Cross University on Tuesday, December 6, brings together a group of geographers and anthropologists to showcase a range of contemporary quantitative and qualitative research methods.

The research methods include social applications of geographic information systems (GIS), time-series analysis, mixed-methods approaches, discourse analysis, and ethnography.

Speakers at the colloquium are:

Southern Cross University’s Dr Martin Young with ‘Predicting the spatial distribution of gambling harm in remote contexts – an application of GIS’;

Dr Bruce Doran from the Australian National University, on ‘The use of GIS-based cognitive mapping to investigate social problems’

Dr Suzanne Belton from Darwin’s Menzies School of Health Research with ‘Medical Anthropology: Questioning our assumptions, hearing the other and puzzling the problem’;

Professor Pauliina Raento from Finland’s University of Helsinki on ‘Contesting Space, Time, and Values in the Finnish Trotting Business’; and

Professor Tess Lea from the University of Sydney with ‘Can there be Good Policy (or is it a contradiction in terms)? Exploring Policy Failure in the Indigenous Domain from an anthropological perspective’.
Photo: Dr Martin Young from Southern Cross University's Centre for Gambling Education and Research.